Culture Generator for Lazy Gamemasters

One of the common complaints I hear about fantasy and science fiction world building is that the
supposedly fictional cultures are just real-world cultures with a different name, and maybe some
green face paint. Sure, it would be great if everyone could stop doing that, but creating an
original and believable culture from scratch is hard (for most of us – I hear you, one person who
does this kind of thing easily, and I don’t need your gloating right now). So instead I created this
tool to lean into the laziness and still come up with something that’s at least a little different from
the umpteen million cultures we already have (or at least have had) here on Earth.

The idea is simple – roll on Table 1 to pick a real-world culture to use as a base, then roll on
Table 2 to pick something significant that’s different about them in your setting, and run with
that. Some of the results on Table 2 list several options; if there are two, decide between them
by any 50/50 method, and if there are more than two then roll the appropriate die to pick one. If
you’re feeling ambitious, roll twice on Table 2 and combine; if you’re feeling really ambitious
(and really stretching the use of the word “lazy”), roll twice on Table 1 and combine.

While I’ve tried to make things as varied as I could, it is definitely possible that your roll on
Table 2 doesn’t actually change anything from the culture you rolled on Table 1 (e.g. “Romans,
but expansionistic”). There are two ways you can deal with this. One is to find a way to really
turn it up to 11 (“Romans, and so successful at expanding that they’ve achieved Mongol-level
conquest”). The other is to reroll on one or both tables. Your call.

Of course there have been more cultures in human history than I can possibly keep track of, so
some omissions are inevitable, and mostly unintentional. One exception is cultures which, for
the bulk of real-world history, have not had their own country and have been outsiders no matter
where they are – for example, Jews and Romani in Europe. The lack of a home country may not
be the defining feature for these cultures but it definitely had an impact on how they evolved
over time, and on their relations with other cultures around them. Since the main use that I
envision for this tool is to create fictional cultures that do have their own land, I have
intentionally left out these others. Note also that this is different from cultures which are mostly
nomadic but still have their own (relatively) well-defined territory, such as Bedouins or
Mongols.

One of the limitations with this system is that it relies on having a more or less unified idea of
what a culture is, which isn’t always reflected in real life. For example, if you roll Romans, are
we talking about the Roman Empire or the Roman Republic? If you have a preference, go with
that. If you don’t, or you just like rolling dice (and who doesn’t?), there are two other options.
One is to identify some historical eras and roll the appropriate die to choose between them (e.g.
1d4 for early days of Rome | height of the Republic | transitional period | height of the Empire).
The other option is to divide up that culture’s timeline into roughly equal parts and roll a die to
determine where along that timeline to focus. Any die can work, but 1d10 is probably the
easiest. For example, from the founding of Rome to the fall of the Western Empire is a little
over 1200 years, so every point on a d10 could represent a 120-year chunk (give or take a bit).
Table 1: Cultures 51. Korean
1. Albanian 52. Kurdish
2. Algonquin 53. Lithuanian
3. Anangu 54. Malay
4. Andorran 55. Malian
5. Akan 56. Mapuche
6. Arab 57. Marathi
7. Arawak 58. Mayan
8. Assyrian 59. Moche
9. Azerbaijani 60. Modern American
10. Aztec 61. Mongolian
11. Babylonian 62. Navajo
12. Basque 63. Noongar
13. Bedouin 64. Ostrogothic
14. Bengali 65. Ottoman
15. Berber 66. Pashtun
16. Bulgarian 67. Persian
17. Byzantine 68. Pict
18. Carthaginian 69. Polish
19. Celtic 70. Polynesian
20. Cherokee 71. Portuguese
21. Chinese 72. Roman
22. Chinook 73. Russian
23. Cornish 74. Samanid
24. Czech 75. Sao
25. Dayak 76. Seminole
26. Egyptian 77. Sioux
27. English 78. Somali
28. Ethiopian 79. Spanish
29. Finnish 80. Sumerian
30. Flemish 81. Swiss
31. French 82. Tagalog
32. Fulani 83. Tamil
33. Genoese 84. Telugu
34. Georgian 85. Thai
35. German 86. Tibetan
36. Gowa 87. Tlingit
37. Greek 88. Trebizond
38. Gupta 89. Tuvan
39. Hausa 90. Viking
40. Hittite 91. Ukrainian
41. Hmong 92. Vandal
42. Hungarian 93. Vietnamese
43. Inca 94. Visayan
44. Inuit 95. Welsh
45. Irish 96. Wiradjuri
46. Iroquois 97. Yoruba
47. Japanese 98. Zulu
48. Javanese 99. Zuni
49. Khazar 100. (something else not on this list)
50. Khmer
Table 2: But… (1d20)
1. Different predominant terrain/climate (1d6)
1) Arctic
2) Coastal/islands
3) Desert
4) Mountainous
5) Prairie
6) Tropical
2. Different type of government (1d6)
1) Autocracy
2) Confederacy of tribes, clans, or city-states
3) Democracy/Republic
4) Feudal
5) Oligarchy
6) Theocracy
3. Do or don’t build giant monuments
4. More or less aggressive toward neighboring nations
5. More or less expansionistic
6. More urban
7. More agrarian
8. Nomadic
9. Nature worship (can be instead of or in addition to other religious beliefs)
10. Vegetarian
11. Technologically advanced
12. Technologically backwards
13. More egalitarian
14. Magic specialization (1d8)
1) Alchemy
2) Divination
3) Elemental magic (focused on local terrain)
4) Elemental magic (focused on any one element, regardless of local terrain)
5) Healing
6) Illusion
7) Shapeshifting
8) Summoning
15. Reliant on an unusual (possibly magical) animal
16. Significant taboo
17. Isolationist
18. More or less unified
19. More or less collectivist
20. Gender roles are more equal, or reversed
Now make it less lazy

Now that you got your basic mix of stereotypes but with a significant difference, think about
what that actually means. How does that one difference ripple out into different levels of
society? If you rolled Mongols but with a taboo, once you’ve decided what that taboo is, how
might it affect their interactions with each other, or with outsiders? Would it show up in their
clothing, their art, their sports? What about their military strategies?

Also look for ways that your new culture might inform the geography and ecology of your
world. For example, if you rolled Inuit but agrarian, what exactly are they farming? Maybe
some parts of their territory are warmed by hot springs or volcanic activity or ley line
confluences or whatever. Or maybe there are different plants in this world that thrive in an arctic
climate.